23 April 2011

Oldbury

Hinkley

A new poll shows the majority of people in Sedgemoor think that the £100million of investment proposed by EDF Energy as part of its plans for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point will have a positive impact on the area.

Torness

AN investigation is under way after a radioactive leak at the Torness nuclear power station east of Edinburgh. Health and safety officials were alerted when the problem was found during a routine inspection at the plant near Dunbar, East Lothian. Groundwater at the Dunbar plant was found to be contaminated with radioactive tritium leaking from two pipelines.

Scotland

Letter: THE Scottish Chambers of Commerce support for new nuclear power (20 April) stands in stark contrast to the view of the majority of Scotland’s main political parties, the renewables’ industry and the conclusions of independent power sector analysis by Garrad Hassan for Friends of the Earth Scotland, RSPB and WWF. This showed renewables can grow to comfortably exceed Scottish demand by 2020. With better interconnection, energy storage and demand management, Scotland could phase out both coal and nuclear by 2030, and still export some 20 million worth of renewable electricity each year.

Letter: Renewables cannot work in the time available or at all. If attempted we will end up with a huge distributed investment, sucking subsidy, generating little at the wrong time and demanding increasing maintenance with attendant costs and dangers.We must install massive fission nuclear immediately, leading, with luck, to fusion towards the end of the century. This is something which could be the key to industrial and hi-tech growth in Scotland for the foreseeable future. In the whole context, the issue of waste is unimportant. If the engineers are left free to deal with it, ways can be found for its destruction in new reactors.

Chernobyl

THE rundown of the Dounreay nuclear complex could provide lessons for the eventual decommissioning of the Chernobyl plant, according to an expert. World powers this week pledged nearly 500 million to help build a new containment shield for the Ukrainian facility ahead of the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident. Jillian Bundy, training and development manager at Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, has recently returned from a three-day visit to Ukraine where international experts discussed plans to decommission Chernobyl. She was one of four foreign speakers invited by the International Atomic Energy Agency to share their experience of decommissioning nuclear sites. The conference was held in Slavutych, a new town built about 50km from Chernobyl to house people displaced by the exclusion zone around the plant.

When a plume of highly radioactive material billowed into the atmosphere from Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power station, few realised its effects would be just as prominent for decades to come. Yet as the catastrophic disaster nears its 25th anniversary, toxins still pervade areas affected by the fallout, particularly in neighbouring country Belarus, where 70 per cent of the radiation fell. The country’s ground, water and food are still contaminated and will be for thousands of years. But a charity set up to help children suffering from the fallout is determined to make sure the rest of the world doesn’t forget the disaster.

A week of meetings on the world’s worst nuclear accident has highlighted a key message: the Chernobyl cleanup will remain expensive and anxiety-provoking for decades to come. Still, differences over the true consequences of the 1986 calamity meant that no formal conclusions were issued as the meetings ended Friday.

Radwaste

WORK aimed at proving the safety of the UK’s designated low-level radioactive waste disposal site is complete. LLWR at Drigg needs a new permit in order to continue operating the site for many years ahead. The ball will be set rolling next month when an all-embracing safety case is submitted to the Environment Agency. But it will take two years for the Agency to go through all the work with a fine tooth comb. Until then the site can operate under its present authorisation but a new permit is crucial for the future. It is not expected before May 2013.

Sellafield

SELLAFIELD’S Effluent and Encapsulation Plants (E&EP) teams are celebrating having reached one year worked without a Lost Time Accident (LTA). More than 500 employees work within E&EP – a series of facilities used to process intermediate level solid waste and liquid effluents generated across the site prior to final encapsulation or released to the environment within the limits specified.

Nuclear Liability

The nuke industry is lobbying for a cap on its public liability. “Consultation” ends on 28th April. Wrote today to tell the Department of Energy and Climate Change that this is insane.

Dear DECC, Please ensure that Radiation Free Lakeland’s views are taken into account regarding Implementation of changes to the Paris and Brussels Conventions on nuclear third party liability. Radiation Free Lakeland are in full agreement with the Nuclear Free Local Authorities that continuing with the ‘nuclear liabilities’ consultation is meaningless in the light of the Fukushima catastrophe. The nuclear industry should not have the luxury of getting away with the limited liability proposed as a matter of course by our pronuclear coalition government. Nuclear operators are allowed to cap their liability at one billion. This would only compensate for the loss of 6 months tourist trade in Cumbria.

Uranium

Leaking radioactive material from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant has poisoned the entire global uranium market. Every nuclear- and uranium-related asset on the market has suffered drastic devaluations.

Japan

The former governor of Fukushima province has spoken of his frustration at the failure of the Japanese authorities to heed his warnings over the safety of the power plant that was stricken by the country’s recent earthquake. The story of Japan’s epic disaster comes with a generous cast of Cassandra figures, the seismologists, conservationists and whistle-blowers ignored by the national nuclear planners. But 71-year-old Eisako Sato may be pre-eminent among them. As governor of Fukushima Prefecture from 1988-2006 – “roughly half the life of the plant”, he told journalists at Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club earlier this week – he was initially an enthusiastic supporter of nuclear power, swayed like his predecessors after the government and utility giant Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) brought his prefecture jobs, subsidies and a chance to contribute to the national good. In 1998 he conditionally agreed the controversial use of mixed oxide plutonium uranium (MOX) fuel at the plant. But he withdrew it after discovering a cover-up of reactor malfunctions and cracks. Later his doubts would grow.

Tens of thousands of Japanese have made a pilgrimage to a 1,000-year old cherry tree that has blossomed just 30 miles from the site of last month’s nuclear disaster. The tree in full bloom has become a symbol of hope in Japan. Adding to the significance of the occasion is that the tree is one of the oldest in a country that cherishes cherry blossoms as symbol of springtime renewal and a fresh start.

Japan’s government said it will largely take over speaking for embattled Tokyo Electric Power Co., after six weeks of nuclear crisis at the company’s Fukushima Daiichi power complex have often generated conflicting reports from the government and Tepco.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees the country’s top nuclear regulator, said Friday said it will run Tepco’s main daily plant-status briefing, held each evening, though the company will conduct some others on its own.

Wind power can generate electricity up to that produced by 40 nuclear reactors, the Environment Ministry said April 21. The ministry calculated the amount of electricity that can be produced using natural energy sources in Japan. The result: Wind theoretically shows a significantly greater likelihood of generating power across the country compared with other natural energy sources. The results show that even on the assumption that windmills are not continuously operational, they still have the capacity to produce electric energy equivalent to that generated by 40 nuclear reactors. Japan has 54 commercial reactors, generating nearly 30 percent of the country’s electricity output.

A group of 16 nuclear safety experts has issued proposals for preventing a recurrence of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant accident, saying that “relatively inexpensive improvements, detectable by more extensive analysis beforehand” may have prevented it altogether. The joint statement by experts representing 11 countries, including the United States, Russia, India and Sweden, was presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A stepladder bent and broken against a rack of electrical equipment, debris covering the ground, on-screen radiation readings in the red zone. These are the first images provided by robots from inside the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after the massive 11 March earthquake and subsequent tsunami led to the world’s second-worst nuclear accident. A pair of iRobot Packbots entered three of the reactor units on Sunday and Monday. Their job was to survey the conditions inside and help Tokyo Electric Power evaluate whether it is safe to send humans in to continue the cleanup.

Canada

Ontario’s municipal employee pension fund has pulled out of talks with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to purchase federally owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., raising new concerns about the future of the country’s flagship nuclear energy company.

Germany

Nuclear energy may appear cheap at first glance, but the potential human costs of atomic power make it unaffordable over the long term, German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said in comments released Friday. In an article for news weekly Der Spiegel on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, Roettgen said Germany’s decision to move away from nuclear power generation was a matter of responsible economic policy.

India

Violent protests that have been taking place in India against government plans to build a nuclear plant. Opposition to the project in Maharashtra state has grown since the crisis in Japan. One protestor was killed earlier this week in clashes with police at the proposed site in Jaitapur.

US

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed operating licenses for an additional 20-years for the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Palo Verde is the nation’s largest generating station, with three pressurized water reactors, each capable of producing 1335 megawatts for a combined capacity of just over 4,000 MW. Palo Verde, which began operating in the mid-8os, has racked up a large number of safety violations over the years. In a 2007 investigation, the NRC found that “cost controls had been viewed as more important than safety,” based on interviews with workers at Palo Verde.

Carbon Trading

Major energy companies have been given free carbon allowances worth more than £100m this year for closed or mothballed power stations – despite the fact that the plants are producing little or no emissions.

Microgeneration

This week’s Micro Power News is now available; A group of solar companies has launched a High Court legal challenge against proposals to cut tariffs for larger solar energy projects; Heat pump industry and solar thermal companies getting ready for the renewable heating incentive; Going Solar has starting work on the UK’s largest rooftop solar power project at a site in Ipswich; the UK’s first community-owned environmental solar project in Lewes wants to be up and runing before incentives are cut; Over a thousand homeowners across the south east of England will get free solar PV systems worth up to £15,000.

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